Jn. 4: 5-42
The readings of the third Sunday of the season of Lent invite us to discover our own selves in the presence of the Lord. In today’s gospel, we reflect on the life story of the Samaritan woman. She comes to the well in the heat of the day, probably to hide herself from public. Jesus encounters her beside the well and asks her for the water. She tries to dodge Jesus, reminding him of the social exclusion that exists between the Jews and the Samaritans. Apparently, we may think that Jesus was thirsty and wanted to quench his thirst. However, Jesus wanted to quench her spiritual thirst that she sought from different individuals and places.
At first, Jesus helps her come out of the barrier of the social division between the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus teaches her that all are God’s children and that the Lord makes no distinction between Jews and Samaritans. He loves everyone. We need to keep in mind the fact that it was not the woman who went in search of Jesus rather Jesus came in search of her. Gradually, he makes her realise that this water cannot quench her thirst, but only the living water, the Holy Spirit, can quench her thirst forever. Jesus was referring to his sacrifice on the cross, which unites the entire human race with God and grants the grace to receive the Holy Spirit.
In the next stage, Jesus leads her to a spiritual realm, and she feels confidence in him. She calls Jesus ‘Sir’ and asks for the living water that Jesus promised her, thinking that if she gets it then she could avoid fetching water every day and the problem of facing the crowd. To assist her in finding her true self, which was covered by her past failures, Jesus asks her to call her husband and come back. His intention was not to make her guilty but to make her understand that no earthly water could quench her thirst but only God. She confesses her present state: she does not have a husband, but Jesus, who knows everyone’s past, present, and future, reminds her about her past five husbands and the present one, who is not her husband.
She realizes that Jesus was not an ordinary person but an extraordinary one and recognizes him as a prophet. Therefore, she poses the question concerning the true place of worship: Whether Jerusalem, where Jews worship, or Mount Gerizim, the worship place of Samaritans. Jesus imparts to her profound spiritual wisdom, that what matters is how you worship, not where you worship. True worship is in spirit and truth.
In the third stage, we see she shares her hope about the Messiah, that he would lead them to the truth. It is then that Jesus grants her the greatest revelation of his own self: “I am he…’ the Messiah. In the presence of the Lord, she recognized her true self. One who came to fetch water in the noon in order to avoid the public, proclaims about Jesus to the same public that he is the Messiah. We see in the passage that because of her testimony, many Samaritans believed in Jesus. She came to Jesus with a past filled with failure and a present marked by guilt, but Jesus presents her with a bright future and transforms her as his missionary. Let me conclude this reflection by quoting the short life story of Dorothy Day, who resembles the modern Samaritan woman.
Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 8, 1897, the third child of Grace and John Day. Her nominally religious family moved to the San Franciso and then to Chicago where she was baptized in the Episcopal Church. She attended the University of Illinois at Urbana and became interested in radical social causes as a way to help workers and the poor. In 1916, she left the university and moved to New York City where she worked as a journalist on socialist newspapers, participated in protest movements, and developed friendships with many famous artists and writers. During this time, she also experienced failed love affairs, a marriage, a suicide attempt, and an abortion.
Dorothy had grown to admire the Catholic Church as the “Church of the poor” and her faith began to take form with the birth of her daughter Tamar in 1926. Her decision to have her daughter baptized and embrace the Catholic faith led to the end of her common law marriage and the loss of many of her radical friends. Dorothy struggled to find her role as a Catholic. While covering the 1932 Hunger March in Washington, D.C. for some Catholic magazines, she prayed at the national Shrine of the Immaculate Conception that some way would open up for her to serve the poor and the unemployed. The following day, back in New York, she met Peter Maurin, a French immigrant and former Christian Brother, who had a vision for a society constructed of Gospel values. Together they founded the Catholic Worker newspaper which spawned a movement of houses of hospitality and farming communes that has been replicated throughout the United States and other countries.
At the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day lived a life faithful to the injunctions of the Gospel. Often the newspaper quoted G.K. Chesterton’s famous observation that Christianity hadn’t really failed — it had never really been tried. Day’s life was spent trying. She was shot at while working for integration, prayed and fasted for peace at the Second Vatican Council, received communion from Pope Paul VI at the 1967 International Congress of the Laity, and addressed the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia. Her pilgrimage ended at Maryhouse in New York City on November 29, 1980, where she died among the poor.
As we meditate on this passage today, let us come to the presence of the Lord, surrender our past, present, and be assured of a future wherein we will be able to find our own selves and that will help us live a life according to God’s plan.